1. Field
The invention is in the field of usefully disposing of used vehicle tires by at least partially subjecting them to disintegration by cutting particles therefrom as an assembly of cutter blades is rotated against a rotating tire.
2. State of the Art
Many types of vehicle tire-cutting machines have been developed in the past f or the purpose of so-called "shredding" of tires to be disintegrated. The most usual arrangements provide for feeding the tires between a rotating assembly of circular blades and a stationary assembly of heavy discs spaced apart to receive the blades and to provide anvils against which the tires are pressed by the rotating blades as they cut through the tire bodies, see my U.S. Pat. No. 3,578,252 issued May 11, 1971. However, these shredding machines cannot handle the very large and heavy tires used on various industrial vehicles.
The closest prior art known to applicant is Willette U.S. Pat. No. 3,693,894 of Sep. 26, 1972 entitled "Tire Shredder", wherein a number of tires to be shredded are arranged side-by-side on a tire holder having extendable and retractable hydraulic ram members radiating from a central hub and carrying respective longitudinal arms that extend transversely through the interiors of the several tires to collectively clamp against the circumferential beads thereof for holding the tires during the cutting operations, the length of such arms being dependent upon the number of tires held side-by-side on the tire holder which is rotated relative to a rotating assembly of elongate serrated blades, the longitudinal length of such blades also being dependent upon the number of tires held by the tire holder. This apparatus is incapable of handling the very large and heavy tires that have heretofore not been capable of being effectively disintegrated.